Famous and very popular media search engine, The Pirate Bay, perpetually in the crosshairs of Big Media to shut it down, is to shift away from torrent files from next month and replace them with Distributed Hash Table (DHT) and Peer Exchange (PEX) technology reports ExtremeTech. They have actually been using these for quite a while now, as this is the technology underlying their Magnet links which have appeared next to the torrent links as an alternative way to download. They have done this, because torrent files are stored centrally on a web server, which makes them vulnerable to aggressive rights holders who want to take them down, while Magnet links are decentralized "trackerless", removing this vulnerability. Also, at the moment, it's impossible for anti-piracy outfits to tell how many files a user is sharing when using Magnet links, or what they are. From next month therefore, only Magnet links will be available. Note that Magnet links are compatible with various anonymizing services, for anonymous downloading, but there can be a significant performance impact on those services. In fact, TPB has been using Magnet links with torrents for some now too, but just did so quietly, without telling anyone.

Popular BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent already use Magnet links as easily as torrent files, so there won't be much difference to the user experience. The main difference, is that they can take a bit longer to get going, but the final download speed isn't any less, due to the cascading exponential pyramid nature of incoming peer connections guaranteed to max out any internet connection, when there are enough peers.

Go TPB go! Good idea. Anyone who uses torrents though, even for legal downloads, should use peerblock with the proper lists in place. You have no idea how many little organizations scan and trace you. Our privacy is at serious risk now because of this sopa bs. Even magnet links are still risky.

Go TPB go! Good idea. Anyone who uses torrents though, even for legal downloads, should use peerblock with the proper lists in place. You have no idea how many little organizations scan and trace you. Our privacy is at serious risk now because of this sopa bs. Even magnet links are still risky.

but at this point The Pirate Bay has banded together with all major Torrent providers and essentially 1 month from now torrents will cease to exist on there sites

aka this is more about The Pirate Bay leading a charge in which Torrent files bite the dust in favor of magnet links using DHT and PEX which are also more secure and harder for outside influences to track and trace users.

Go TPB go! Good idea. Anyone who uses torrents though, even for legal downloads, should use peerblock with the proper lists in place. You have no idea how many little organizations scan and trace you. Our privacy is at serious risk now because of this sopa bs. Even magnet links are still risky.

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Conspiracy theory much?
One out of a million people get busted and you're scared of the government.

Looks like they won if they've instilled fear into you.

Not a single argument has been presented to why SOPA is illegal or invades privacy. Thinking it's going to stop is funny.

but at this point The Pirate Bay has banded together with all major Torrent providers and essentially 1 month from now torrents will cease to exist on there sites

aka this is more about The Pirate Bay leading a charge in which Torrent files bite the dust in favor of magnet links using DHT and PEX which are also more secure and harder for outside influences to track and trace users.

Do you know privacy is?
How does cutting your ability to access a site give up any privacy at all?

That's no different than the government forcing Social Services to take your children because you're not raising them correctly.
(Analogy: Gov't forces ISPs to cut your access to a site because you're abusing the site)

All it is, is a bunch of bandwagoneers thinking their privacy is getting invaded because a popular video/site says they are, but cannot present a valid argument of how their privacy is actually being invaded, such as a government tapping into your phone lines with unauthorized permission.

Do you know privacy is?
How does cutting your ability to access a site give up any privacy at all?

That's no different than the government forcing Social Services to take your children because you're not raising them correctly.
(Analogy: Gov't forces ISPs to cut your access to a site because you're abusing the site)

All it is, is a bunch of bandwagoneers thinking their privacy is getting invaded because a popular video/site says they are, but cannot present a valid argument of how their privacy is actually being invaded, such as a government tapping into your phone lines with unauthorized permission.

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Nope not a clue, but since you didn't bother to do your own research.

cnet said:

What will SOPA require Internet providers to do?
A little-noticed portion of the proposed law, which CNET highlighted in an article, goes further than Protect IP and could require Internet providers to monitor customers' traffic and block Web sites suspected of copyright infringement.

Do you know privacy is?
How does cutting your ability to access a site give up any privacy at all?

That's no different than the government forcing Social Services to take your children because you're not raising them correctly.
(Analogy: Gov't forces ISPs to cut your access to a site because you're abusing the site)

All it is, is a bunch of bandwagoneers thinking their privacy is getting invaded because a popular video/site says they are, but cannot present a valid argument of how their privacy is actually being invaded, such as a government tapping into your phone lines with unauthorized permission.

Click to expand...

I also don't give two shits about privacy.

But SOPA is against Freedom.

Social Services takes your kids away because they are separate people who have their own rights which you are infringing upon.

Websites/services cannot be abused and/or what I do on a website is my business and they shouldn't have the right to tell me what to do unless I'm hurting another person.

In this case, the only thing I could be hurting is a large corporation. And if that becomes more important than said corporation hurting me, there's no real freedom left.